Starting the makeover

Tomorrow is the first day of March!! This leaves us one month until our house will be put on the market. So the transformation begins. We haven't done anything much with our house since we moved in, so it's kind of exciting to finally be putting some work into it. Luke and Pam are coming up tomorrow and will get us novice painters started on the main floor. So all my pictures are down and the sanding/filling has begun. I picked this Shy Blossom green shade by Glidden paints. It'll take the yellow out of the walls a little. I think it'll look good....kinda like this....
http://www.glidden.com/visualizer/visualizer.html?imagecode=usliving_008
Then we'll have to redo the kitchen mocha color and bathroom silver shade. I'll take some pictures for you.

Girl Power

The package we got at the spa was called GirlPower!! Me and two girl friends went to the Delta Hotel in Kananaskis for this fun night of major food and relaxation. Our loft room was wonderful. We enjoyed the pool...this is the outside view of it...the sunlight roof is above the pool. The hot tub goes right to the outdoors, so we sat out there mostly.

After we had checked in and went for a swim, we enjoyed a chocolate fondue in our room and a movie.

We also soaked our feet in a peppermint foot bath while we watched.
The next day, after a wonderful buffet, we went for a quick jaunt around the village.


It was cold, but very beautiful, set in the snowy mountains.
Then it was time for our spa treatment. I went for the one hour facial which included an arm/hand/shoulder/scalp massage. It was really wonderful. I almost completely forgot where I was. I had the lady take a pic of me with my mask on but I look like I had just died on the table...so I won't show you that. (I had a white milk mask on!)

I now have glowing happy skin. Totally rehydrated.
Then we hit the pool again and had a big yummy supper at the lodge before heading back to our normal lives!!
It was time and money well spent. Something I wish I could do more often with all my girl friends and sisters.

My time

Speaking of me time...it's been rare for Liam to nap these days, and today he decided to be kind and is sleeping!! so YAY! He is such a bear in the late afternoon when he doesn't nap, and then an absolute crazy goofy man after supper until bedtime. So it's nice of him to nap for once and keep his usual and much saner schedule.
My friend thought it would be fun for "the girls" to go away to Kananaskis for a night. The Delta hotel has this spa package deal which also includes a chocolate fondue and movie night. So two girls and I are heading out tomorrow afternoon to get in on this lovely treatment. My sis, sis n law, her sis and G's sis all pitched in for a spa time for my birthday...so their money is going to that and I'm really grateful to all of them. I'm getting my first facial.
I'm leaving the boys for the first time overnight, with Greg. They'll have a blast I'm sure.
So SEE YA!

13 weeks to go!!

Isn't that unbelievable!

I look like I have this totally high bump today...so G took pictures.
Here we are...27 weeks.

We survived

Greg decided to have a guys weekend and left to Seattle on Sunday morning and is coming home today (Tuesday). He and Andrew went to see The Shins with his brother Glen. Sounds like they had a fun time. G's birthday is in a few weeks, so I guess you could call it an early celebration.
In the meantime I was left with the boys, which is not too crazy as I'm home every day with them...except there isn't that time after 6pm when dad walks in the door and wrestles with the boys and I get a "break" to do the dishes and caught up on laundry before they are in bed by 8pm. That little 2 hour window of opportunity. Also I had to take them to church on my own which isn't the easiest when you are leading singing for all the kids and your lead guitar player (that would be Greg) is away!! So it was me, myself and I, with Liam on the floor beside me with a huge snack. That kid will not go into the nursery (praise&play) anymore, without screaming bloody murder, and the room is right off of the sanctuary area so I can't just leave him yelling the whole time!! Oh well...I know all kids have their stage of playing shy and this is it for him. He had no accidents this whole weekend by the way!! (go Liam) I also am finishing up the church directory photos and we actually got all that we could do...only missing about 3 families now who have been away. So that project is almost done.
Ya, so we survived. I've said it before, but I want to give credit to all those single mommies out there.
Today I'm going with Riley to school as a volunteer for his 100th day of school. I guess it's a big deal. We made an abacus (sp?) out of 10 strings of 10 fruit loops for Rileys' project.
Have a good week!

Honeymoon is over

...and I don't mean in my marriage.
I'm talking about this pregnancy of mine.
I seem to be drifting farther and farther away from the wonderful bliss of the 2nd trimester...no sickness, cute little boots now and again, renewed energy, easy time sleeping at night etc. to suddenly feeling larger, huge kung foo moves late into the night, shortness of breath, tiredness, sore bones, a shift in my posture which makes my back tired, etc.
Oh yay.
I had it so easy in the first 6 months that I'm worried it'll somehow turn into a wicked last 3. So optimistic, I know. I'll try not to whine. I need to take some more pictures of myself before I turn ginormous. How do you ladies with 8+ children do this over and over?!

The joys of moving

...and I'm not being sarcastic here. Of course we all know the downsides there are of moving...the packing, sorting, cleaning, repairing, the actual physically hard moving day, the costs, and then leaving friends etc. I'm trying to focus on the good parts today. Most days I worry about how much our timing is completely terrible with having a baby right in the middle of it all, but I'm really wanting Riley to finish up with kindergarden before we uproot. I'm also not wanting to be so busy with the packing/unpacking that I miss out on the precious first months of our baby. And yet, somehow I know that we just need to go home this summer. Maybe last summer would have been more easy and convenient, but this is just the way that things have worked out and I'm sure there was a reason God had it work out this way.
Anyway...there are many things that get me excited about moving...the main part is the actual house stuff. I love looking at houses and dreaming about house plans and where I would put what and how I would decorate each room. I come by this honestly as my parents are exactly the same way. In fact my great grandma was well known for her cool house plans that she made for builders. It's fun to hear my dad and brother talk all about house stuff as they now work as finishers...putting up trim, railings and floors etc. for their new business. It is definitely a passion for our family, but the funny part is that though we moved many times, we never built a house or have even done a whole lot of stuff in our houses (aside from basement renos)...we just like to talk about it. We love house tours and seeing house plans, watching real estate or reno shows to which my hubby rolls his eyes. Actually my bro and his wife have just finished painting their house and put on a great deck...so they are more pro-active. I on the other-hand, haven't even painted a room. I've had other "things" to take up my time and also admit I am too much of a perfectionist to do a crappy job, making a mess out of it or having it take forever with all the interruptions that occur in a day for me. Things are going to change though. Currently our living room is a bold lime green. It needs some holes filled and a good coat of paint before we list it, so we are going to tone the shade down a bit. My parents and bro/sil have offered to come help us novice painters. I also have big plans to get some more furniture and move our unmatching "college days" junk out of here. We have one good couch we bought after we moved in, that's it, so I have some purchasing to do. I'll have to do a before/after shot for you. Then, once I have the experience from fixing up this place before we go and sell it, I will have more confidence to go to town in our new place. Hmmm...time to check out mls again.

hearts and love and stuff

Today I made cookies for Riley's "friendship day" party tomorrow. Heaven forbid that the public school uses words like "Valentine's" or "Christmas" anymore.
I love baking. It becomes different when baking with two little guys who have a love for cookie dough (who doesn't I guess!) and who just can't keep their little hands to themselves!! Oh well, I'll get lots of time to bake alone when my boys grow up and want nothing to do with it! On Friday I actually made some cream puffs too...so I'm really on a roll.

Anyway, the point of this post... Happy Valentine's Day to all! I hope anyone reading this (all 6 of you) have someone close by to hug and smooch on. I sure do, and as much as there are days I just want to be ALONE for a minute, I don't want to miss a moment of the L O V E from my little men (and my big one too). Greg and I had our first valentines together when we were in grade 12. That was many many moons ago. I had bought him this big chocolate shaped like a letter "G". I had it hiding under my bed in its box in a bag. It apparently wasn't hidden enough, because our dog ended up finding it and eating the whole thing while I was at school. Yes...the dog ate it. Classic excuse, but true.

Something you don't want to see

Today we did our daily trek in the snow to the school. We had just arrived when I turned to my left and saw a bundle of pink get hit by a car. A little kindergarden girl was just hit. I screamed along with most of the mothers standing there, and many people started running. It seems a blur already, but I believe the driver had honked and that's what made me turn to look and see it all happen. The driver didn't seem like a parent, more of an older guy just minding his own business...and going probably too fast in front of a school in my opinion. Anyway...the girl thank goodness seemed fine. She was crying lots. I think her backpac was stuck under his wheel, but she did not get run right over. She walked off with her mother to their car and seemed to be mostly freaked out rather than hurt. The whole parade of firetruck/ambulance and policeman came soon after. Liam had lots to say about it while Riley was typically pretty quiet.
Anyway...accidents happen so fast. Isn't it just a miracle that we all can live to adulthood?? Give extra hugs to your loved ones today!!

Happy to report

That we are done with diapers!!! YAY!
I must clarify that we are still slightly house-bound to be sure we catch everything on time every time! but Liam is doing great! I think since Sunday there have only been 2 accidents, one while we were out. I put diapers on him at night and naps, but they are dry. So we are very thrilled. As hard as it is to be sure he makes it to the potty all day long, it's so so nice to be done with the changetable for the first time in over 5 years.

More of Maui

I know you've all been waiting for more pictures of our trip...and I finally have got them onto my computer, after G installed the new hard drive. Thanks honey.
Let me tell you a few stories with the pics...if blogger cooperates here...



Here's the Maui baby bumps. Lisa was going on week 16? and I was at week 23. We brought them back some little baby t-shirts from Maui. We had to do frequent potty breaks, but otherwise I thought us prego ladies did well on the trip.



This was our ride. We rented the PT cruiser and went up and down the west coast. It was really fun. Greg proudly took this photo.




Here we are from the inside. (Andrew took this photo.) We all got the nice wind-blown hair look.



Our first day...whale watching. Hey, I'm not the whale...it's behind me. (Greg took this photo.) There were many whales around. On the last day I got to see one jump up and almost clear the water...so cool.









These three pictures were taken while we went on a timeshare tour of a fancy hotel. We got sucked into hearing the 2 hour speech from this sales guy in order to get a super cheap price on a luau for later in the evening. It was fun to see the high rise rooms, and the incredible view...but ya, 2 hours was a little long to sit there through the guys shpeel. But the luau was really good, so it paid off.







This last photo is taken that evening on the grounds of the hotel where we had our luau. It was absolutely beautiful there. Greg took this picture...I'm walking up on the right there. There were about 200? or so guests at this luau that all sat outdoors in the perfect wedding setting...just on the lawns above the ocean...with gorgeous sunset views. The food was amazing. I've never had so much fish in one week. I couldn't get enough of the mahi mahi. We were served like royalty, and the guys were served up endless drinks and I had this yummy coconut one.
Greg was chosen out of the crowd to go up on the stage and dance. Here he is shaking it!





Here we all four are on our condo patio on the last morning. (Andrew brought his little tripod!) So sad that it could be over so soon. We had to check-out of the condo by 11am, and so all our luggage was in the car with us for the entire day til our flight out at 11pm. We decided to spend the day at the beach(es). We didn't want to waste our time shopping. It was another perfectly sunny day. We headed south to a gorgeous beach, appropriately called Big Beach (because of the big waves). We went out for lunch afterwards (without a shower first) and the waitress had guessed where we had been cuz we were absolutely covered in sand. The sand was caked in our ears and eyelids and we're still shaking it out of odd places! The waves were totally cool and the water was super clear. I was pretty nervous as I'm not very balanced as it is, but I managed to avoid the massive wave that took out Lisa and Greg!


This is one of the waves, with Andrew and Greg in the middle of it! Lisa took this sweet photo!



And I wanted to include this picture of our friends Lisa and Andrew, as our final evening in Maui came to a close. We had such a good time with these two, and thank them for all their hard work that they put into planning the trip for us. Hopefully we can all go on another trip again together.

So I don't have any more energy to add more pics tonight...I will probably post some more on Flickr at some point. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have hoped, but at the same time I didn't want to spend the short holiday behind my camera. Thankfully Andrew has some great photos, so be sure to check out his blog.

Hope you enjoyed the short tour.

Family of four

I was taking pictures all morning at church as we attempt to update our church directory. It's pretty fun to see everyone in their current family groups and see how much they have changed and grown since their last picture. Our family included! Our last photo in the church directory, we're looking rather straggled with a grouchy 2 year old Riley and a totally limp and utterly full newborn Liam who had just finished nursing the entire length of the service. G and I were there, but barely standing due to exhaustion. I guess that hasn't changed. No. I guess it looks like we have a little more life in us after our wonderful vacation.
So this is us today...our family of four. Won't be four for long. You see a bit of the "bump" behind Liam, which will soon be another little body to add in our next church directory photo.
Greg and I were discussing as we drove through our old neighborhood the other day, how we can hardly remember when it was just the two of us. Just Greg and Sarah. The young little newlyweds in our little apartment in Capitol Hill. It's such a distant memory now. How life changes so fast.

If you give a mom a muffin

(someone sent me this...I found it super cute and should be made into a book like the others)

IF YOU GIVE A MOM A MUFFIN

If you give a Mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
She'll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She'll wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She'll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan dinner for tonight.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She will look for her cookbook (101 Things to Make With a Pound of Hamburger).
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for her checkbook.
The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring.
Her four year old will answer it and hang up.
She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come for coffee on Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.
And chances are......
If she has a cup of coffee......
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

Potty training...again

Yes...third time's a charm, right?
It's the end of day two and we're doing much better this time around...no pee on top of the sub, or pee in the carpets or on the couch (so far). We've got new Diego undies, special treats, and a new seat to fit on top of the big potty. He seems to have this major hate for the little potty chair we spent a small fortune on (which leaks anyway). Liam is aware that he is a big boy in his big boy undies and seems to be excited this time around. So I'm hoping that this is it!! I will give it my best go for at least a full week and will hope to report with good news. He's waking up dry from night too, so that's helpful. Then I can check off one more thing we hoped to get done before the baby.

It is so so cold and I'm coming down with a scratchy throat. Today was sunny with lots of snow on the ground. Yesterday before it snowed was terrible cold with major wind. I hate cold wind. I can deal with -35, without wind...but the wind cuts right through you like a knife. And you all know what can happen to your nose when there is major wind chill, ha ha. I must look like a real nut every day on our walk to school, all bundled up in my non-matching nor very hip outerwear, pushing a buggy through snow drifts with my glasses all nice and foggy. Happy February by the way! Yay! for being that much closer to spring. We are all suffering terribly from cabin fever. Tommorow we get to venture out to our friends as I'll be taking pics of a two year old. Then on Saturday I'll be taking pictures for the same family of all her 3 boys. Wish me luck with that!